“Your value rises by the moment, wench,” Alex drawled. “It appears that I not only hold the heir to Leargan and all else that filth Colin possesses, but the bride to the heir of Craigandubh.” He tightened his grip on her soft hand when she tried to wriggle it free, then tugged her closer to him. “Now, what doyethink I ought to do with ye, a lass who is so closely tied to two men I sorely ache to run my sword through?”
The very softness of his lovely voice made her blood chill, but she faced him squarely. “Ye already ken how ye will act, so I willna waste my breath to answer ye.” She glared when he slid his gaze over her in a slow, insolent inspection, for she saw it as nothing less than an insult.
“Aye, I ken what I shall do with ye. That ye should have been saved for the poor abused Sir Donald MacCordy will only sweeten my cup.” He glanced at Jaime, whose huge fists clenched and unclenched. “Ye had best warn your large friend not to try to be gallant, or all your valiant efforts to keep him alive will have been for naught.” The way the color seeped from her face told him that she truly cared for the brute, yet Alexander wanted to deny that truth, for it undermined his bitter, unflattering opinion of women.
“Jaime, ye swore that ye wouldna raise your hand against a MacDubh.” Ailis kept her voice calm yet firm, for it was the surest way to pierce through Jaime’s fury. “Ye must hold to your oath.”
“But, mistress,” he protested, “I ken what he wants with ye.”
“Hold to your word, Jaime,” Ailis stressed. “I willna have your blood upon my hands. Ye can do naught to change my fate.”
“I can snap the rutting bastard in twain,” Jaime grumbled, his dark eyes hard with fury and his gaze fixed upon Alex all the while he flexed his big hands.
“Aye, ye can do that.” Ailis looked at the man who still gripped her hand and idly wondered why the Lord sent her a persecutor hidden beneath such a lovely shell. “And I shall be right there to enjoy it when the time comes, but that time isna now, Jaime.” She looked back at her big friend. “Nay, not now. I may have more need of ye when I face my uncle and my betrothed again.”
Before Alexander could reply, servants arrived with food and drink. When the children, Ailis, and Jaime held back from sitting at the table, Alexander none too gently pulled Ailis to a seat by his side. The children and Jaime cautiously followed, but an outright command was needed to get them to sit. Alexander found it a little confusing. The children acted as if they expected to be forcibly expelled from the great hall.
“We canna eat in the great hall,” Sibeal blurted. “Grandmère forbade it. So did Uncle Colin. Are ye sure we shouldna go to our room? We do have a room, dinna we? Rath makes naughty noises, ye ken. Aunt Ailis can come with us, too. She often does.” She sat stiffly at Barra’s side, tensed as if prepared to flee.
“Well, we dinna mind sharing our table with children,” said Alexander. “Did your uncle and grandmère often have company, then?”
“Nay,” mumbled Sibeal, who suddenly grew intensely interested in the food Barra set before her.
Ailis felt her heart contract as it always did when the children revealed how their elders’ scorn had touched them. She was also relieved when Sibeal grew quiet. Ailis did not think it would help her at all if Alexander MacDubh found out how the children had been mistreated by the MacFarlanes. She saw Barra exchange a look of puzzlement with Alexander and knew that her sister, Mairi, had never told Barra how the children had been treated like pariahs. She suspected Mairi had feared that Barra would insist upon taking the children out of the reach of that scorn, and Mairi would never have been able to give up her children. She prayed that Alexander would not press the matter, then glanced at the man and inwardly groaned. Alexander had a look of determination on his almost pretty face, and instinct told her that he would indeed press the matter. He had questions, and she knew that he was a man who would doggedly pursue the answers.
“There appears to be something tying up the wee lass’s tongue.” Alex looked at Ailis. “She willna reply to any questions.”
“Mayhaps that is because what ye are asking isna any of your concern. Ah!” she cried softly when he took hold of a hank of her hair and none too gently pulled her toward him until their faces were but inches apart. “Brutality will gain ye naught, Sir MacDubh.”
“Iwillhave the answers,” he said in a low, quiet voice, ignoring Barra’s soft admonitions and noting that, although Jaime was as taut as the finest drawn bowstring, the man held to his promise to stay his powerful hands. “ ‘Tis by your command that they remain silent, mistress. I wish to ken what poison your cursed family has fed to them.”
Even if he threatened to snatch her bald, hair by hair, Ailis swore that she would not answer. She set her chin and gave him her most stubborn look.
“Leave her be!” Manus cried, grasping Alexander’s wrist. “I will tell ye all ye might wish to ken.”
Alexander loosened his grip on Ailis’s thick, midnight-black hair and mused that the boy looked far older than his seven meager years. “Fine. Why were ye made to dine in your chambers?”
“Because we are bastards.” Manus blushed, cast a brief, nervous look at a tight-lipped Ailis, and continued, “Our mother’s kinsmen, except for Aunt Ailis, couldna bear to look upon us. Grandmère MacFarlane said that we were produced from sin and shame and that we reminded her that her eldest daughter was naught but a whore.” His clear voice wavered slightly. “Grandpère was much the same, though he was dead ere I was old enough to care much. Colin MacFarlane sees us as a mark of shame—‘a sordid stain upon the name MacFarlane’ is what he calls us. He says we are naught but a whore’s misbegottens and that he canna bear the stench of us. That, sir, is why we stay within our chambers.” He returned to his seat and, after one last glance at Ailis, began to eat.
As Ailis fruitlessly tried to put some order into her wild unbound hair, she hissed at Alexander, “Are ye satisfied now, Sir MacDubh? Now that ye have opened up all of their wounds? They see and feel the scorn and pain it stirs all too often. They dinna need ye making them face it so fully and hear it discussed.”
Her words held a truth that Alexander chose to leave unacknowledged. He could easily read the wounded look in the children’s eyes. For a moment he said nothing as he valiantly fought to control his temper. It was not only the heartless way the children had been treated that stirred his fury, but how the knowledge of it brought even more grief to Barra.
“What have ye been told about your father?” Alexander asked abruptly, glancing at each child in turn as he awaited a reply.
“Only what our mother and Aunt Ailis have told us,” answered Manus. “We couldna go with Mama to see our father once we began to speak, for the secret could have been revealed. Children dinna always think before they speak. Mama told us that there were people who would kill our father if they kenned who and where he was. Mama said he loved us, but she didna want us to have to bear the weight of such a secret or suffer the guilt if we couldna keep that secret. I can understand all of it now. We often exchanged gifts with our father. Wee tokens.”
“Aunt Ailis told us what Mama did,” Sibeal added. “Aunt Ailis says our birth canna be a sin in God’s eyes because Mama acted from love. God understands love.” She patted Barra’s tightly clenched hand where he had rested it upon the table and smiled at his taut, wan face. “Ye must not feel sad for us. Aunt Ailis says that when we die, we will be taken in God’s arms like Mama was. God has very big arms.” She suffered herself to be held tightly for a moment by a smiling but moist-eyed Barra. “I hope Mama willna be cross if I dinna go to God’s arms too soon.”
“Nay.” Barra’s voice was unsteady as he released the little girl. “Your mama willna mind if she has to wait four score years or longer.”
“Was there more?” Alexander pressed.
“Our mother told us that Manus and I have the look of our father except for the color of our hair,” Rath answered. “Sibeal has hair like our father’s. Mama once said that it was for the best that we were kept much out of sight, for there was a big danger that somebody would see in us the clue as to who our father is.”
Manus nodded. “Then those people who wished him dead could have found him and killed him. Aunt Ailis says that would have killed our mother as quick as that knife did.”
“Who wished to see your father dead?” Alexander asked, curious to see how much they had been told.
